


Distraught

by tatarrific



Category: South of Nowhere
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-23
Updated: 2014-10-23
Packaged: 2018-02-22 08:14:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2500859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tatarrific/pseuds/tatarrific
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>But the sun is eclipsed by the moon...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Distraught

Title: Distraught  
Author: sugarmomma  
Words: 528 (Doh! And I *cheated*!!!)  
Summary: But the sun is eclipsed by the moon...  
 **Prompt for CHALLENGE 1 - Damage, eclipse, headphones.**  
Rating: Gen  
Pairing (if any): Angsty Ashley, oh my!  
Disclaimer: Pink Floyd owns the lyrics - and I didn't count them in the word count. Hee!

 

 

~~~

 

The library is the darkest room in the school. Ashley knows this intimately, intuitively, relishes the fact, that knowledge. Draws deeper into the shadows, draws the tall sentries of silent book cases tighter around her, builds a dark fortress. There is comfort to be found in the library among the smell of mold and dust, pressed paper and glue, a kind of peace she doesn't find often. Thinks to herself: If no one imagines you would be in the library, no one at all, are you really there?

She likes the cool solitude and mute silence of it overall. None of the sunlight from the outer world, none of the noise seems to penetrate this corner of the sprawling school complex. She bends over her notebook, adds another verse to the song she is working on, bobs her head along to the music coming through her headphones.

__  
Remembering games and daisy chains and laughs  
Got to keep the loonies on the path

She is working on a song, but the music in her ear and the images insinuating themselves on the blank paper in front of her are tearing apart her focus, not letting go. The Bic leaves deep, ink-stained grooves across the page, a hieroglyph of her frustration. There are words on the page, rhymes, but no meaning, no thought; meaning evades her, fades into the song flowing into her ears, mocking.

__  
You raise the blade, you make the change  
You rearrange me 'til I'm sane  
You lock the door and throw away the key  
There's someone in my head but it's not me

There are days when, if she could cut this part of herself out, the part that reacts, that feels so irresponsibly, so futilely, she would. The part of her – she hasn't decided what it is; her brain or her heart – that insists on focusing on blond hair, the toned stomach, that maps each pursed-lip smile, every tilt of the head, she hates it, she wants it gone. She brings it to the library, out of the sun, away from blue eyes and pale skin not yet damaged by the harsh California sun. She tries to sequester, to isolate, she fails. Her pen moves across the paper, draws an outline of a girl.

__  
All that you touch and all that you see  
All that you taste, all you feel

In the end, she is left with a half-written song and a vague drawing, defeated in the semi-darkness of the library. She thinks to herself: If no one can imagine you falling in love, not even you, are you really in love?

__  
And all you create and all you destroy  
And all that you do and all that you say

She will pick up her things then, shut off her music, walk out and be blinded by the mid-day sun. She will meet Spencer after school, fall under that spell again, surrender to it. Hope she will be proven wrong.

__  
And all that is now and all that is gone  
And all that's to come and everything under the sun is in tune  
But the sun is eclipsed by the moon

 

~~~  



End file.
